Aterciopelados- Rio

Iconic Colombian Group Builds Upon the Crossover Success of Latin
GRAMMY-winning Oye (2006) With New Album

Mixed in NYC by Hector Castillo (Brazilian Girls, David Bowie, Gustavo Cerati)

Nacional Records is proud to announce that Colombian music icons Aterciopelados will release their highly-anticipated new album, Rio. The new release finds the band aggressively building upon the creative momentum of Oye, the critically-acclaimed album that not only won them a Latin GRAMMY but also a Premio Lo Nuestro award. TIME said, “Aterciopelados’s true skill lies in its ability to take north-of-the-border musical styles… and breathe new life into them, all while giving them a distinctly Colombian sheen.”

Rio is evidence that, as VIBE put it, “For Aterciopelados, maturity has become a form of liberation.” The album was recorded in the band’s hometown of Bogotá and mixed by Héctor Castillo (Brazilian Girls, David Bowie, Gustavo Cerati) in New York City. It is an impassioned, socially conscious record with the group’s signature organic rock sound.

The album’s opener and first single is the title track, a call to action that finds Aterciopelados at a new level of creativity and musicality. It coincides with a proposed Colombian constitutional referendum that declares the country’s bodies of water deserve basic rights. “When I was growing up, the Bogotá River was considered a mythic and iconic place, and now it’s a tiny stream,” says singer Andrea Echeverri. “Musically and lyrically, the track ‘Rio’ is unlike any previous Aterciopelados song. I’m even singing in a different way than in the past. With this one, we reached an entirely new place.”

The album’s guests range from rapper Gloria “Goyo” Martínez (of Colombian hip hop act Choc Quib Town) on “28,” to the Andean group Kapary Walka on “Madre” and “Aguita.” Echeverri’s

daughter, Milagros, makes an appearance on “Ataque de Risa.” The birth of Milagros, now six, was the primary inspiration for her critically lauded self-titled solo album. “This track was originally going to be on a children’s album I’ve been recording with Manolo, my husband, and Milagros in our home studio. With the first couple tracks, Milagros was nervous at the mic but now she approaches it with such confidence and happiness.”

Aterciopelados plan to tour the U.S. in support of ‘Rio’ in early 2009, following the birth of Andrea Echeverri’s second child. They recently completed a European tour with her pregnant belly proudly displayed.
The longtime creative relationship between Echeverri and Buitrago proves to be the source for the band’s musical genius. “We have had quite a musical career, which has evolved over the years through our own identity search and experimentation, finding our own sound,” Echeverri says. “I do some things, like writing the songs and he does the other things, such as producing and imagining the musical vision for the song. We really complement each other musically in a way that works. And more important than anything, we have love and respect for each other.”

lunes, 1 de diciembre de 2008

The Washington Post


ATERCIOPELADOS BRINGS A NEW, AND RESONANT, MATURITY TO ITS LATEST RELEASE. (NACIONAL RECORDS)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

RIO
Aterciopelados

Colombian alt-rockers Aterciopelados audaciously and convincingly reinvent themselves like no one's business. On their seventh LP, "Rio," the garage punks turned trip-hopsters turned folk-rock fusionistas musically sound like an amalgam of themselves. Weepy surf guitars, ethereal spacy electronica, the Andean charango (a 10-string mandolin made from an armadillo shell), rain sticks and even the trickling sounds of the Bogota River make cameos.

Lyrically, though, they've never sounded more responsible -- parenthood tends to do that. They champion immigrants, the environment and motherhood. It's not that firecracker lyricist Andrea Echeverri -- expecting her second child -- has newly found indignation. She's always been ornery. But this time, her spunkiness is cool, contemplative, mature and poetic, as well as unabashedly confrontational.

In song, Echeverri once threatened to slice an unfaithful lover's face with a razor and kill his mother. Now, she sarcastically howls on the feisty tune "Bandera": "Who are you? Where were you born? You are the conquered, not a conquistador. You're not allowed to dream of a better life." Only in Spanish, it's full of alliteration and rhyme.

On the title track, she sings: "The river waters come running, singing through the city -- dreaming of being cleaner, clearer." And on "Treboles," she declares, "God bless our wombs, bring purity to our minds" -- this from someone who once sang, "I won't ruin my silhouette with no baby."

-- Mario Iván Oña

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